Prof. Anna Grabowska was awarded her PhD by Cambridge University, carried out postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School, Cambridge University and University of Nottingham (UoN) and is now Professor in Cancer Microenvironment, UoN. She leads a group which, through funding from Industry, CRUK, MRC, NC3Rs and Research Charities, has developed improved pre-clinical models of cancer that are more reflective of the tumour microenvironment and can be used to challenge new drugs and drug combinations in a more clinically-relevant setting. These models incorporate early passage human cancer and stromal cells, and make use of constitutive and inducible bioluminescent/fluorescent reporters to track cell proliferation and location in real-time and to relate onset of biological processes to tumour progression and drug response. She works with collaborators in academia and industry to use these models for pre-clinical development of drug delivery and tumour imaging systems as well as for target validation and drug screening.